I'm sorry for posting my "how 'bout this art" message without giving any
explanation of my intentions. I want to see a wholly redesigned mod_perl
site. But there's a lot of effort which needs to be spent before we achieve
perfection. And not everyone will agree on how to achieve this end. While
art/layout issues are certainly subjective, I actually saw it as the area of
least controversy, and that's why I tried to slip it through. :-) But I
agree it would be much more prudent to step back and work on a master plan
first.
Jesse Kanner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> sez:
> Will you have any comps of the second level pages? Which information would
> go where? So far, your left hand nav seems pretty good, provided the
> current home page content will fit nicely into the buckets you've
> proposed.
I attempted to come up with some categories into which existing content
could neatly fit. This is because I would expect a great deal of fuss if I
proposed discarding any of the existing content. Reorganizing existing
content is easy. It's much more challenging to decide what we actually want
on the site; this means we'd have to discard unwanted content and (*gasp*)
actually create new content where needed. And I don't want to bemoan the
lack of any content which I'm not willing to create. :-)
Alex Schmelkin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> sez:
> While I'm sure Matt Arnold's effort to redesign perl.apache.org is greatly
> appreciated by everyone on this list, it seems to me that a bit more
> preparation and interface design should actually go into the final
product.
> Before we redesign the mod_perl site, we need to have a more common vision
> of the goals and limitations of any redesign efforts. Design is not simply
> an exercise that exists to make things 'pretty' - it is a discipline to
> solve communications problems, and then to make things look 'pretty'.
I couldn't agree more. A complete redesign from the ground up is what I'd
like to see. But I just figured non-controversial, incremental improvements
would be more well-received. And I saw art (i.e. marketing/presentation) as
the area of greatest need. That's why I kicked up a sample design.
I'd definitely like to see a master plan for the site. I'm even willing to
do it, but I'm not sufficiently flame-retardant for the task.
Robin Berjon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> sez:
> If we only want to provide
> information to developers, then ordering the links and sections is
probably
> all we want, and we can forget about the eye candy. On the other hand if
we
> want to use this site for evangelical needs, then we might need a bit more
> design. I don't have to deal much with people questioning my choice of
> mod_perl (against MS ASP, Cold Fusion, etc...) so I don't really mind too
> much about the evangelical/marketing side, but from my from experience
when
> one does need to convince a boss or a client, being able to point to a
> "good-looking" site helps a lot.
The Netcraft results at http://perl.apache.org/netcraft/ serve as a good
benchmark for the success of mod_perl, that is, if one defines success by
market penetration. My own goals for mod_perl are that of "world
domination"(tm). (Oddly, I wasn't concerned with matters of world
domination until I started using Linux, but I digress...)
As popularity of mod_perl increases, more and more people are visiting
perl.apache.org (and www.modperl.com) to see what all the fuss is about. To
some extent, I believe people are put off by what they find. The
information isn't necessarily poor, it just isn't what they expect.
I believe many people come to these web sites looking for reasons to
"bite" -- looking for reasons they can feel confident about relying on
mod_perl for their complex web needs. In short, I believe people are
looking for marketing information. And I'd like to offer them what they're
looking for.
Neil Kandalgaonkar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> sez:
> 3) Purposes a good site should serve -- may have to be adjusted downwards,
> but here's my ideal...
>
> - mod_perl news.
> - mod_perl FAQs, developer's guides and documentation.
> - mod_perl evangelism, quantitative and anecdotal comparison with similar
> tools.
> - mod_perl mailing list archives (well, links to them, anyway?)
> - basic intro to mod_perl
> - where appropriate, demonstrate the power mod_perl (as in, actually use
> the darn thing on the site...)
> - search engines -- ideally a combined docs/guides/mailing list searcher.
I think this outline is a good one. I want to offer a simple
introduction -- why mod_perl is so cool. I want to offer the marketing
information they're craving. I want to offer a buzzword-compliant spec
sheet targeted towards pointy-haired-bosses. By no means do I want to
compromise the integrity of the product -- I don't want to sell-out, tell
half-truths, or resort to unscrupulous tactics employed by salespeople
desperate to only separate people from their money. I just want to do a
better job at trying to get the truth out there. I want to offer a site
befitting the excellence of mod_perl itself. This is no easy task.
I see the greatest need in the marketing area. I'm willing to create this
content and submit it for inclusion to the site. I just don't want my
efforts to be for naught. I want some sort of indication this process is
going forward.
Robin Berjon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> sez:
> As a side note, reading about that desert idea this morning triggered a
> neuron somehow, so I quickly modified an old template of mine that hadn't
> been used and uploaded it at http://www.knowscape.org/modperl/ ...
This example is real nice, and I like it better than my own. I'm just
desperate to get something, ANYTHING out there. We must act quickly. Each
night, I lay awake -- tormented by visions of more and more people slipping
away and turning to the dark side. I see potential marketshare crumbling
away as more and more people put their faith in "the man". I see people
turning away from salvation only because we failed to offer an adequate
invitation. We must act now, lest we lose yet another soul to an expensive,
proprietary, inferior product.
Whatever.
Neil Kandalgaonkar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> sez:
> A great site showcasing a certain other technology is http://www.php.net/.
The PHP site is quite amazing really. Content-rich. Clean. Turbo-studly
layer tricks (which some of you despise, I'm sure.) It's a great example
worth emulating. And that "View Source" thing on every page is real smooth.
By this time, I can sense a lot of readers out there shouting, "Come on,
it's just a web site, it's not that hard!" These people are right. It
isn't that hard. Any one of us could kick up a new site. But the problem
is that we want to "make all the people happy all of the time". And therein
lies the problem -- especially when it comes to something subjective as
organization, design, and (the need for) marketing.
Overall, I'm highly-optimistic about seeing a fresh face to the site. It
seems that there are enough of you out there similarly hopeful in making
improvements. But it will be really hard to design this thing by committee.
We need someone to make hard decisions -- someone that can decide what stays
and what goes, a person (or people) that can take the roles of "art
director", "technical editor", "non-technical editor", and perhaps other
roles. We need someone to herd cats. :-)
[X-Disclaimer: All of this, of course, is my very humble opinion. Your
mileage may vary. There's more than one way to do it. And everything I say
may be completely wrong.]
Matt
